With ever-increasing farm labor costs, mechanized equipment is becoming increasingly important to profitably operate a farm. The making of hay is a farm operation which requires the expenditure of substantial amounts of work and thus increased mechanization of this operation is particularly beneficial to the farmer. The advent of hay balers has substantially expedited the processing of hay, however, the movement of the bales from the field into a hay barn is an operation which has heretofore required substantial manual effort.
For years, it has been common to draw a wagon behind the baler and have a worker ride on the wagon to stack the bales thereon. "Bale throw" devices have previously been mounted on the rear of a baler to throw the bales haphazardly onto a wagon which is drawn behind the baler. Although such a device eliminates the need for a man to stack the bales, the random placement of bales does not efficiently utilize the storage space on the wagon.
To bale hay as quickly as possible, frequently the wagon is not pulled behind the baler and the bales are randomly deposited on the ground. In this case, the hay bales must be subsequently picked off the ground and stacked on the wagon and this requires substantial time and effort.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide apparatus for loading and stacking bales on a wagon.
It is another object of the present invention to provide apparatus which will pick bales off the ground and stack them on a portable, longitudinal platform such that the bales are oriented lengthwisely on the platform.
It is another object of the present invention to provide loading and stacking apparatus which will form a lateral row of stacked bales which is transferred to the wagon.
It is another object of the present invention to provide apparatus for loading rows of stacked bales on a mobile platform by lengthwisely moving the bales in one row into engagement with a row of bales previously transferred to the platform to move the previously transferred row rearwardly.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art as the description thereof proceeds.